We could call “Cold Souls” “Being Paul Giamatti,” or, perhaps more appropriately, “Not Being Paul Giamatti.” Just as the titular “Being John Malkovich” had the actor in self-portrayal, so does this first-feature foray for director Sophie Barthes. The premise is simple: Giamatti is having trouble with Chekov’s play Uncle Vanya, reads a magazine article promoting “soul extraction” technology promising to alleviate the ailments one’s may cause, and takes the plunge to have his removed and stored until the play is complete. The problem is, two weeks unexpectedly turn into much more, after his chickpea-shaped soul is implanted into a soap opera actress seeking greater talent. Giamatti goes soul-searching - all the way to Russia - to reclaim his discarded inner being and in the process learns a thing or two about self-acceptance and the human condition.
The film is so satirical it’s hard to say it’s a comedy, because it doesn’t provoke chortles or belly-laughs like, say, the one-lines you get in “Forgetting Sara Marshall.” But it’s not that kind of film. It is instead a cerebral comedy, where the brain, the body and one’s being are picked apart and mocked as the commodities they’ve come to be in the modern age and Western world.
Giamatti is an actor who can’t separate his Chekov character from himself, and says he needs to be “unburdened” to perform well. His agent recommends newly-pimped soul-extraction technology profiled in The New Yorker. Giamatti, like real-life contemporary Philip Seymour Hoffman, is known more for his acting chops in films like “Sideways” than for his looks, and once again delivers in “Souls.” When primary soul-extractor Dr. Flintstein (played with a cool sense of ambiguity and enthusiasm by the familiar David Strathairn) asks the actor how he feels once soul-less, Giamatti replies “Light, empty, bored, great.” It seems the “operation” may very well work well for its intended purpose.
But when Giamatti rehearses an Uncle Vanya scene, he’s overly sarcastic, insensitive, and quite hilarious. And later in the evening at dinner with his wife and friends, he loudly chomps celery while recommending that one of their friends just “pull the plug” on an ill and non-responsive loved one. Without his soul, Giamatti lacks measure and sensitivity, easily maligning others, albeit unintentionally. With poor on the job performance and the inability to make love to his wife, he goes back to have his soul re-implanted. And then, the true fun of the film begins.
Dr. Flintstein argues the soul extraction is working well, since Giamatti admits to not having one dark thought, and, to the actor’s ability to perform Vanya without feeling distress. But goes on to tell Giamatti that the moment he gets his soul back, he’ll feel the unbearable weight (of it) and again be unable to perform. The good doctor then proffers a “soul catalogue” where clients can peruse and rent the purchased and traded souls of everyone from a Chicago sportswriter to a Russian poet. Giamatti elects the latter, begins to experience some of the poet’s essence once hers is implanted, and ultimately finds the new “organ,” as Dr. Flintstein put it, “too beautiful” and rejects it. He decides to take his old soul – imperfections, darkness and all – back. But when he goes to retrieve it in the locker, it’s gone, traded on the black market to a talentless Russian Soap Opera actress.
Imagining the commoditization of souls, like livers and hearts, isn’t that far flung. Plastic surgeries, human trafficking, sexual slavery; all are prevalent in today’s world. It seems nothing, however immoral, is kept from the auction block.
In order to reconnect with himself prior to re-implantation, the actor must actually look into his soul (caged in a jar) – something he’d refused to do when it was first extracted. Getting over this obstacle has been the protagonist’s challenge all along.
“Cold Souls” combines a shaky balance of pathos and eccentric humor that sadly become less comical, in direct relation to how eerily realistic the jokes are. And while cloaking the moral commentary in chickpeas and prunes, jars, chambers, and foot lockers, the film attempts to reach its hands into our innards, hoping that they’re still warm to the touch, and that they stay put.
DIRECTOR: Sophie Barthes SCREENWRITER: Sophie Barthes PRODUCERS: Paul S. Mezey, Andrij Parekh, Jeremy Kipp Walker CAST: MPAA RATING: PG-13
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